


The Wandering Hours

by shaggydogstail



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Pining, UNIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaggydogstail/pseuds/shaggydogstail
Summary: It's been a long time since she travelled with the Doctor, and Martha's built a good life for herself.  She's doing well at work, and she's happy.She really doesn't need Rose appearing out of the blue to turn her life upside down.





	The Wandering Hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



> Thank you, Chocolatepot, for the beta job. Any remaining errors are mine.

The walls are collapsing, the Rift is open, and the Doctor is nowhere to be seen.  Martha’s OK, though, it’s nothing UNIT can’t handle, and it’s not too long before they’re off crisis mode and onto the clean-up.  It’s all hands to the pump: coming up with something palatable for the press, counselling the survivors, and helping the displaced find new places.

As Medical Director, all of that falls under Martha’s jurisdiction, and she’s personally supervising the medical assessments. (No-one gets away from UNIT without a thorough check up – a nasty outbreak of Venetian Flu that took out half a Manchester suburb gave rise to some very rigorous procedures to prevent cross contamination.) It’s been a long, hard day of swabs and samples and an epic of form-filling and it’s not like she could’ve been expecting her.  It’s been so long

The dye-job looks more expensive and the super-weight mascara’s given way to winged eyeliner, but there’s no mistaking the voice that greets her with a cheery call and a wave. ‘Martha Jones, fancy seeing you here.’

Rose Tyler.  Fellow Child of Time, Defender of the Earth.  Good old Rose.

‘Rose.’  Martha smiles her broadest welcome-to-UNIT smile.  It covers a multitude.  ‘Long time no see.’

#

Rose is cagey about how she got where (and when) she did, and doesn’t show any sign of wanting to move on, and somehow this means she ends up moving into Martha’s spare room.  Martha tells herself that she really is happy to do Rose a favour, and not that she wants to prove to herself that of course would.  After all, why would she ever feel threatened by Rose?

Martha’s a qualified doctor with specialisms in combat injuries, emergency medicine, and – though she’s had to leave it off of her GMC registration – xeno-biology.  She’s a senior officer in UNIT with experience of everything from front-line combat to covert ops and plenty more in between.  She’s been to the end of the universe and back, walked the world and saved it often.

Rose Tyler can’t make her feel inadequate any more.  Martha can’t allow that to happen.  And so, Rose is her new flatmate.

It all makes perfect sense.  Somehow.

#

The grisly gangland murders that have kept the Met busy and the press frantic for months don’t actually have anything to do with aliens, but the police dive team coming face-to-face with strange, squat turtle-men in the middle of the Thames does.

Rose doesn’t say much as she trails Martha around, allowing Martha to organise a low-key relocation exercise, smooth things over with the Chief Constable, and approve a story about a student art project gone awry with the press office without interference.  It’s a bit disconcerting, actually, the silent way Rose watches her, and Martha ends up inventing jobs for her to do – updating the UNIT database entry on Chelonians, phoning London Zoo, even whipping up a few flower crowns – and is a little surprised at how cheerfully Rose follows her orders.

‘Thanks for helping out today,’ she says when they get back to the flat and Rose is flicking through take-away menus.

Rose looks up from the kebab shop flier.  ‘You didn’t need my help,’ she says.  ‘You only asked me to help out a bit to keep me busy.’

She turns her attention back to picking something cheap and greasy for dinner, not looking offended, but Martha feels awkward anyway.  She doesn’t think she’d been rude.

‘Chicken shish?’ asks Rose.  ‘With the lot?’

Martha nods. They’ve really got to start eating better; Rose already knows all her favourite junk food orders.

‘And chips,’ she says.  ‘I’m starving.’

Rose gives her the thumbs up, already on the phone to the shop down the street.  It only takes a minute.

‘I enjoyed watching you today,’ she says after she’s put the phone down and Martha’s passed her a can from the fridge.  ‘I always said you were good.’

Rose’s smile is wide and brilliant, and Martha can’t help but feel pleased.  She knows she’s good, of course she does, but it never hurts to be told, does it?

‘Cheers,’ she says, and Rose’s smile grows impossibly broader.

#

It’s been weeks and Rose isn’t showing any signs of wanting to move on, apparently content to stop in Martha’s spare room and do occasional odd jobs for her at UNIT.  Martha doesn’t understand it: Rose has a life of her own, doesn’t she, in a parallel universe, but she doesn’t show any sign of wanting to get back to her old life or build a new one.  She watches Martha, calm and appraising, and Martha grows used to it.  A person can get used to anything, even being hung, so the old joke goes.

After a day of boring office jobs and the odd spot of politics, with a trip to the House to meet with Dame Lethbridge-Stewart as the only bright spot, Martha decides that she’s earnt a drink or five.  She and Rose find their way to a quiet bar with a special on herb-y cocktails in mismatched glasses.  The décor is a bit self-consciously hipsterish, but it’s pleasant and the staff are friendly.

By the time Martha’s worked her way far enough down the menu to find her favourite, the smoky-sweet kick of a Sage Gold Rush, she’s feeling pleasantly tipsy.  Rose’s choice of drink is less enigmatic than, well, just about everything else about her, and she’s stuck to a prettily pink concoction of basil and rhubarb.  Martha wouldn’t like to say if it’s more she’s hoping the alcohol will have loosened Rose up enough to answer some questions, or got her bold enough to ask.

‘That parallel world, the one you went to,’ says Martha, hoping to sound friendly and not like an interrogation.

‘Yeah?’

‘You were with the Doctor,’ says Martha.  ‘That’s what I heard.  A version of him anyway.’

Rose’s smile this time isn’t the brilliant, wide-toothed grin; it’s small and a little sad.  ‘I was.’

Martha takes another drink, wondering if she’s being pushy, but Rose has this expectant look on her face, like she’s waiting for Martha to ask.  ‘So, what happened?

‘You’re a time traveller too,’ says Rose, looking at Martha directly.  ‘You should know that everything ends.’

She’s got a point as well; Martha does know it.

#

‘You were married,’ says Rose.  It might be a question; it would be polite to make it at least sound like a question.  It isn’t a question.

They’re in a pub this time, a moderately fancied-up country place on the way back from retrieving chunks of a Cyber Conversion Unit from some fool at a recycling centre in Shropshire.  The food's OK and Martha doesn’t even have to worry about having a drink because she has a driver.  She’s had one for years, makes sense for her to be able to work on the road, but sometimes she remembers it and it all seems a bit mad.

‘Yeah,’ she agrees between forkfuls of steak and ale pie.  ‘I was.’

‘So?’ Rose’s grin is mischievous this time.  ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, you know.’ Martha shrugs. It doesn’t really take a time traveller to understand.  ‘Everything ends.’

#

Eventually Martha gets used to having Rose around: the scent of her shampoo lingering in the bathroom, the ketchup bottle that she will insist on putting the fridge instead of the cupboard where it belongs, the PG Tips and packets of custard creams in the kitchenette at work.  After living alone for… well, it’s been a few years now, since her marriage ended, Martha’s surprised at how easy it is to allow someone to slip into her flat and her life.  There’s a comfort, somehow, in having Rose around, someone who knows what it’s like to watch the world end and put it back together again, to ricochet through time like a marble in a pinball machine.  They don’t talk about it, not much, and Martha likes to think that’s got more to do with not needing to because they have a silent understanding than the air of mystery Rose likes to cultivate about herself.

In fact, she’s grown so used to Rose being around that when, one day, Rose is gone, _that’s_ what makes everything seen off, tilting Martha’s carefully busy life off-kilter.

She’s left a note and most of her clothes, and Martha thinks – hopes – she’ll be back soon.  The note didn’t really tell her much.  Well, there’s not a lot she can do about it.  She makes few discreet enquiries at work, checks some CCTV footage, and asks around, but draws a blank.  It’s daft to worry about Rose; Martha knows perfectly well that Rose can handle herself.

It’s only when Martha’s back at home, tucking into virtuous but insipid tuna salad and watching Newsnight instead of one of those daft reality shows Rose likes so much that Martha starts to recognise that vague, hollow sensation at the pit of her stomach.

She’s feeling lonely.

It didn’t make much sense.  Martha has friends, her family, colleagues she genuinely likes and respects.  But there’s something about spending time with Rose, some elusive quality to their budding friendship that made Rose getting crumbs in the butter and stealing Martha’s jacket seem _right_ , and Rose not being there to yell that every single character on all three of the soap operas she watched of an evening was an utter twat just felt _wrong_.

#

Martha’s alarm doesn’t go off in the morning, and when she tries to check the time on her phone it gives her an electric shock.  The clock on the microwave is somehow going backwards, and fuck knows where her watch has gone. The Today programme tells her that there are reports coming in of sundials bursting into flames in public parks, and that the hands on Big Ben have simply vanished.

It doesn’t matter if it’s five to five or half past nine – clearly it’s time for Martha to get to work.

#

Several hours – probably, everyone had to guess – later, and there’s still no clear reason why every timepiece in the country was suddenly out of action.  UNIT has reached out to branches worldwide, and found similar issues affecting Ottawa, Paris, and New Delhi, besides plenty of other spots in between.  The most likely theory is that it’s something to do with the crisis with the Rift opening all those months ago, though no-one’s sure quite why, or how or what. 

One thing Martha does know is that Rose arrived when the Rift opened: and it seems very likely that whatever’s going on now has something to do with her recent disappearance.  Martha’s not the only one who thinks so, and she overhears a couple of Sergeants muttering like Rose might somehow be to _blame_ for all this.  Martha’s gut tells her it’s nothing like that and she offers them a stern rebuke for gossiping in the corridors.  She’s not too worried about Rose, either, because Rose can clearly handle herself.

Something tells her that Rose will show her face soon.  Martha’s looking forward to it.

#

It’s evening, or getting on for it, when Rose finally turns up.  Actually, it’s probably about 6 –ish, because although every attempt at keeping time locally has failed (including the water clock built by some of the finest engineers in the British Army boiling dry within seconds), they _can_ still get the time by phone from a few other countries which haven’t been affected yet.  Any attempt at broadcasting the information fails, though, and Martha feels faintly ridiculous calling up someone on the other side of the planet just to ask the time.  Besides, it’s hardly a long-term solution, especially since the number of places left on Earth that can still tell the time appears to be dwindling rapidly.

Which makes it all the stranger that Rose is wearing a watch when she wanders into Martha’s office like nothing has happened, and stranger still that it appears to be working.  Martha’s got about a dozen questions, ranging from _how are you doing that?_ to _where have you been?_ and not forgetting _have you got a clue what the hell’s going on?_ but she never even gets a chance.  There’s a familiar _vwoop-vwoop-vwoop_ in the corridor, and she and Rose are running before they even have a chance to think.

Martha recognises the Doctor who strides out of the TARDIS, though she doesn’t know him.  He’s followed by a fresh-faced young woman with splendid hair and a rainbow tank top, who Martha thinks looks awfully young.  It occurs to her, briefly, that it’s not so much that the Doctor’s latest companion is all that young, but that Martha herself is getting older.  Well, there are worse things that can happen to a person.

‘Martha, Rose.’  The Doctor holds out his arms in an expansive gesture, though Martha detects a hint of sarcasm behind it.  ‘Which of you charming troublemakers has unleashed a gang of Clock Breakers onto the Earth?’

‘We didn’t unleash anything, they came through the Rift,’ said Rose.  ‘I am _trying_ to fix it.’

Martha’s not sure what Clock Breakers are, how they came through, or what to do about them, but she’s not about to let the Doctor think he can getting away with just swanning into UNIT and demanding answers.

‘Perhaps you’d like to help?’ she suggests.

The Doctor grins, and pulls on what Martha strongly suspects are a purely decorative pair of sunglasses.  ‘At your service, Dr Jones.’

#

‘They’re parasites,’ explains the Doctor, looking up from the thin dossier of information that UNIT have gathered so far.  ‘Scavengers.  Opportunities.  They swarm around looking for temporal disturbances and feed off the aftershocks.’

Martha frowns.  ‘So do they eat time?’

‘Not exactly,’ says the Doctor.  ‘Not time itself – that isn’t possible.  At least, it would take something a lot more powerful that these tricky little blighters.  But they’ve got a taste for anything to do with our perception of time.’

‘And that’s why you called them Clock Breakers,’ says Martha slowly.  ‘They start on anything helps us measure time?’

‘Exactly.’  The Doctor grins, expansive and wicked.  ‘Now I can lure them away somewhere they’ll do a lot less damage, but first you’ll need something to stabilise the temporal disturbance.’

‘And how are we going to do that?’

The Doctor nods towards Rose.  ‘Why don’t you ask your companion?’

Rose takes a step backwards, moving slowly, and holds up her hands.  ‘I can explain everything.’

The Doctor’s new friend, Bill, has been watching the conversation without speaking so far, seems tickled by this.  She casts Martha a knowing look and laughs as she says, ‘you want to watch that one.’

‘Tell me about it,’ says Martha with a sigh.

#

In between planning and organisation, and getting some sort of an explanation out of Rose, there’s time for a spot of gossip.  It’s fun, chatting to Bill and bringing herself up to speed with this incarnation of the Doctor, and there’s something about the new girl’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and natural curiosity that makes Martha feel a touch wistful.  It brings back memories, for sure.  Not that Martha feels any sense of regret: travelling with the Doctor is still a (mostly) happy memory, but she doesn’t want to go back.  Maybe her horizons don’t quite include all of time and space, but she’s travelling her own path rather than being swept along with the Doctor’s tide, and she’s glad of it.

Bill hasn’t heard about the regeneration part – that’s always fun.  Martha pretends not to notice that Rose has got her hands on a classified UNIT file and is showing it to Bill as a photo album.

‘Don’t fancy yours much,’ Rose says, perhaps louder than she means, perhaps not, as she nudges Bill in the ribs.

‘No arguments here,’ says Bill.  Her smile is gentle, mild, but there’s a distinctly naughty twinkle to her eye.  ‘Yours, though.’

Rose beams back at her, another of those extraordinary smiles, and doesn’t seem to disagree.  Not that Martha imagines they’re talking about her.  Really, she’s not eavesdropping or anything.

#

It’s close to nightfall by the time Martha and Rose make it to Greenwich, and Martha still isn’t entirely sure what Rose is up to.  Her disappearance has been at least partially explained by the handful of opals in her pocket, which are apparently just what’s needed for stabilising temporal anomalies.  Which is _awfully_ convenient, and Rose isn’t even trying to pretend she’d deliberately gone looking for them for this anyway.  She still doesn’t quite know what Rose is playing at. It’s all a bit mysterious.

Martha kind of likes it.

She likes the sly, secretive smiles Rose keeps on offering her too, and casual way Rose grabs her hand as they run up the stairs in the Royal Observatory.  Martha’s heart beats a little faster, and it’s not just because of the exercise.

 ‘So,’ she asks at last, ‘are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

Rose just smiles again.  ‘Look at the laser.’

Martha looks up; there’s a laser unit suspended from the ceiling, projecting a beam of light out of the Observatory and into the London sky.  The laser beam, which marks the Greenwich Meridian, is a familiar enough sight, but there’s something not quite right about it.

‘It’s the wrong colour,’ says Martha.  The laser light is a kind of dirty red.  ‘It should be green.’

‘Temporal interference,’ says Rose.  ‘The aftershocks from when the Rift opened.’

‘Like the Clock Breakers,’ Martha adds.  It makes sense; if everyone’s perception of time was being thrown off by breaking clocks, then it wasn’t really surprising that the most basic tools they needed to measure time, to order and quantify it, would be affected too.  And what could serve as the baseline for understanding time itself but the meridian?  Martha looked back at the laser light again.  That red colour, so wrong, made it almost look like it had been poisoned.

‘The Doctor can take care of them,’ says Rose.  ‘We need to stabilise the time lines, though, or else they’ll keep coming back.’

Martha nods.  ‘Is that what the opals are for?’

Rose didn’t look so pleased about that, a faint scowl ghosting across her face before being replaced by a more resolutely cheerful, business-like expression.  ‘It’s not exactly why I came to fetch them, but they’ll do the job anyway.’

She pulled a large, black opal out of her pocket and presented to Martha.  Martha took it from her – belatedly letting go of Rose’s hand to do so – and examined it closely, turning it over between her fingers.

‘It’s not from Earth,’ says Martha. 

Rose shook her head.  ‘They’re called Temporal Stones, Time Opals, Lapis Horas – it doesn’t matter, really.  They kind of soak up disturbances in time, so if we can place a few in strategic points, like on the meridian line, they’ll suck up all the disturbances that let the Clock Breakers in.’

‘Like using charcoal to purify dirty water?’ Martha keeps looking the opal in her hand, fascinated.

‘Exactly.’ Rose grinned, and pointed towards the laser beam.  ‘Fancy giving me a leg up?’

#

Several hours, a lot of running about, and a brief helicopter journey later, Martha and Rose make it back to the office, both carrying large cups of coffee and yawning widely.

‘All done?’  The Doctor’s sitting at Martha’s desk, with his feet on the table.  Bill at least has the decency to sit on a chair like a normal person, even if she does attack the box of pastries Martha and Rose have brought in with undue haste.

‘All done,’ confirms Martha.  ‘Now get your feet off my filing before I have you court martialled.’

The Doctor flashes another of those lopsided grins and jumps to his feet, clapping his hands together.  Funny how he looks to different but still the same, all bouffant hair and pent-up energy.  He probably still thinks he looks cool, too.

‘Right, and you done your bit?’ asks Rose around a mouthful of chocolate croissant.  ‘I want them Clock Buggerers out of here.’

‘I’m on it,’ says the Doctor.  ‘Right, well, I think Bill and I will say our goodbyes; some of us have essays to work on.’

‘Yeah, right.’  Bill catches some crumbs and makes to follow the Doctor.  ‘Unless… you know, if Dr Jones needs a hand…’

‘We’re really fine,’ Martha assures her.  She can’t stop thinking about how _young_ Bill looks.

‘Jog on,’ adds Rose, raises her hand in an only half-friendly goodbye.  Bill raises an eyebrow, looking amused, but heads off after the Doctor without comment.

Martha looks at Rose curiously.  She still doesn’t understand her at all.  ‘You gonna explain yourself at all?’

‘Later,’ says Rose, pulling the lid off her coffee to dip a croissant inside.  ‘Much later.’

#

It is much later, curled up on Martha’s sofa with yet another take-out spread across the coffee table.  One of these days she really needs to learn to cook… something.  Something with vegetables, perhaps.  She’s a doctor, after all, she’s supposed to be good about nutrition.

‘I didn’t come for the Doctor,’ says Rose, straight out of the blue.  ‘I didn’t know he’d show up.  I wasn’t sent to sort out the Clock Breakers or all the time… weirdness stuff.  It wasn’t even the opals… well, not directly.’

Martha stops poking at her char siu pork and puts down the carton.  ‘So what did you come here for?’

‘You.’  Rose looks at her, clear and steady, those impossibly large eyes wide open.  ‘I came here for you.’

‘Me?’  Martha finds herself stumbling over the word.  She knows, of course, that Rose doesn’t mean it… romantically or anything, but still.  There’s something about the intensity of Rose’s expression, the soft curve of her smile that makes Martha’s heart beat a little faster.  She takes a breath and wills herself to sound steady. ‘What for?’

‘You haven’t asked,’ Rose says, ‘about this.’

Rose hold out her arm, allowing Martha to get a good look at her watch.  Except… now that she looks at it closely, Martha can see that it isn’t a watch at all.

‘It was under a perception filter,’ she says, as much to herself as anything else.  ‘That looks like a Vortex Manipulator.’

‘It doesn’t look like a Vortex Manipulator,’ says Rose.  ‘It _is_ a Vortex Manipulator.’

Martha sucks in a breath, impressed.  ‘So does Torchwood have these in your universe?’

‘Torchwood? Nah.’ Rose scoffs.  ‘These beauties are exclusive to the Time Agency.’

‘So you’re a Time Agent now?’ asks Martha.  She studies the device carefully – it’s a bit different to Jack’s, clearly in full working order for the one thing, and Martha suspects it has a few extra functions to boot. In Martha’s experience Vortex Manipulator isn’t the most pleasant form of travel, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t _dying_ to find out more.

Rose nods.  ‘Cool, isn’t it?’ she says as Martha continues to peer at the Vortex Manipulator.  ‘Each one contains a fragment of Time Opal – can’t go whizzing about time and space without some sort of stabilizers.’

‘Yeah.’  Martha frowns, but not unhappily – the whole thing is fascinating.

‘Want one?’ asks Rose.

‘What?’ Martha lifts her head sharply.

‘Didn’t I say I came here for you?’ asks Rose.  ‘The Time Agency sent me to recruit you.’

Martha doesn’t answer at once, just gapes at Rose open mouthed.  She loves her job at UNIT, she really does, and she’s got her flat, friends… but in a moment nothing seems more appealing than adventures in time and space, darting through the universe, going anywhere, any time: she’s ready to run.  And with a Vortex Manipulator of her own, she wouldn’t be a passenger – even if she _were_ only riding a space hopper, it would be her space hopper.

‘Can I take that as a yes?’ Rose grins.

It’s a big decision, one that Martha really ought to take her time over. ‘Absolutely,’ she says.

‘Brilliant.’  Rose leans forward – there isn’t far to travel, actually, she’s already sitting almost on top of Martha – and presses her lips to Martha’s.  It’s a soft, teasing kiss, and it could almost have passed for overly-demonstrative friendship if not for the faintest flick of tongue at the end.

Martha lets out a shaky laugh.  ‘Is seduction part of our job as well?’

‘Nah,’ says Rose, letting her hand trail up Martha’s thigh.  ‘But, y’know… I can multi-task.’

‘Multi-tasking, yeah,’ agrees Martha, as Rose presses hot, damp kisses to her neck and sneaks her fingers into Martha’s waistband.  ‘I can get on board with that.’

#

Six months later and Martha’s waking up under the pink light of the second sun on a minor planet of the Andelphan Cluster.  Sometime soon-ish she’ll have to get out of bed, since there’s a report to be filed and artefacts to be delivered.  Now, though, Rose is just waking up, and Martha gets to enjoy the sight of her blinking and twitching her way back into consciousness.

‘Morning,’ says Martha, pressing a soft kiss to Rose’s forehead.

‘Ugh.’  Rose wrinkles her nose, blinking in the light of the morning sun.  ‘Why are you always so cheerful in the morning?  It’s unnatural.’

Martha just laughs and kisses Rose’s eyelids.  ‘There’s a hot naked woman in my bed,’ she says.  ‘That helps.’

Rose smiles at that, wriggling closer so that she wraps herself around Martha.  ‘Well, when you put it like that…’

They kiss for a while, sleepy and slow, until Rose wakes up enough to start properly exploring Martha’s body.  Her mouth is hot and wet as she sucks on the tender flesh of Martha’s nipple while her fingers move with torturous slowness between Martha’s legs.  She presses hard with a rough, calloused thumb, and whispers tender, dirty things into Martha’s neck as she comes.

‘Mmm.’ Martha hums, contented as a cat, as she relaxes in Rose’s embrace.  ‘Can we stay like this forever?’

‘Sounds good,’ agrees Rose.  ‘If you don’t mind going on the run from the Time Agency – we’re due to report in this evening.’

‘Everything ends,’ says Martha ruefully.  Their mission to the Andelphan Cluster has been pleasant, as these things go.  Only minimal near-death experiences and plenty of opportunities for sex.

‘First rule of time travel,’ says Rose.

Martha turns, rolling Rose onto her back and climbing over her.  She smoothes Rose’s hair out across the pillow then runs her hand down Rose’s body, just barely touching her shoulders,  her breasts, the soft curve of her hips. Rose shudders and bites her lip at Martha’s touch, and Martha doubts she’ll ever tire of watching that.  She moves her hands lower, gently pulling Rose’s thighs apart; she owes Rose an orgasm at least.

_Everything ends._

‘Even this?’ asks Martha as she leans over Rose, not quite touching.  ‘Us?’

‘Yeah.’ Rose smiles, defiant, unapologetic.  ‘But not yet.’

This time Martha manages to grin as broadly as Rose does.  ‘Not yet,’ she agrees, falling into Rose’s embrace and kissing her again.

 


End file.
